New semiconductor integrated circuit (IC) technologies are quite sensitive to overvoltage over active devices. In particular, in new Fin field-effect transistor (FinFET) technologies (e.g., with 16 nm, 10 nm and 7 nm feature sizes) devices are less tolerant to overvoltage events. In wired communication systems, such as Ethernet, handshaking link pulses can, in certain circumstances, cause overvoltage at the transceiver output. For instance, an Ethernet transmitter (TX) may send signals to a far-end receiver (RX), while at the same time the receiver (RX) may receive signals from the far-end transmitter (TX). In order to build up such a full-duplex link, special high-amplitude link pulses can be sent over a connecting medium (e.g., a cable) such that a far-end receiver can recognize these link pulses and start building the link.
The link pulses are backwards compatible to older Ethernet standards, which may use relatively high voltages and currents in the transmitter section of the transceivers. These link pulses are generated by relatively large current excursions in the transmitter output, causing large voltage excursions at the transmitter output. New IC technologies are increasingly sensitive to electro migration in metal layers caused by high currents in these metal layers, which is a reliability issue. Using wider metal traces may help to reliably supply current to the active devices. The wider metal traces, however, exhibit more parasitic capacitance, thus lowering the maximum attainable analog bandwidth.